This article describes a pilot study for a play-based intervention designed to support the development of social competence of youths with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that includes play with the videogame, Minecraft. Four boys with ASD, ages 11-13, participated in play with the videogame during 8 1-hr sessions with a typically developing peer and 2 adults during structured play (role-based objective play) and free play (no roles or objectives) with video modeling, adult facilitation, and mediation from a typically developing peer. High rates of initiations were maintained during structured play; the quality of social play started as weak during free play but improved by the later sessions. Implications of the results for practitioners and researchers are discussed.

Clinical interventions have been effective at increasing social skills of youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, generalization of those skills to non-clinical environments is often low. To reduce this generalization gap, community-based programs have been designed to help youth develop social skills in naturalistic settings. This paper describes a community-based social-skills intervention for youths with ASD aged 7–12, which was designed to build on the findings of a previous study. In this program, youths with ASD co-operated with siblings and peers in structured and unstructured play over the course of four weeks. The researchers conducted extensive observations of the play by the youths and conducted interviews with the youths with ASD, their parents, and program staff. Both in our observations and in the perceptions of the parents, the youths with ASD increased their play and socialization. Using Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-cultural theory as a guiding framework, we describe the components of this intervention that contributed to the changes observed in the youths’ play and social interactions. We developed a model that includes components of instruction, interest, play- based learning, and the structure of program, and which provides an explanation of intervention effectiveness to be explored in future research.

Positive mental health and well-being for school-aged children have become key areas of research, with studies that show school climate and physical activity as being potentially modifiable correlates of these outcomes. As such, the purpose of this study was to examine the role school climate and physical activity play in the well-being and emotional problems of younger (elementary) and older (secondary) students. Using data obtained from the 2009/2010 administration of the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey, this study plotted the combined and independent roles of school climate and physical activity in the perceived emotional well-being and emotional problems of adolescents across Canada (N = *26,000 students, Grades 6-10). We ran a series of regressions to assess both the independent and combined influences of physical activity and school climate on (1) emotional well-being and (2) emotional problems. Our findings suggest that (1) there is no significant effect of grade, (2) for emotional well-being, both physical activity and school climate contribute significantly and relatively equally and independently, (3) for emotional problems, physical activity and school climate have independent but differential contributions, (4) physical activity and school climate are more predictive of emotional well-being than of emotional problems. In conclusion, school climate and physical activity are potentially modifiable factors for school settings and could potentially be targeted to facilitate emotional well-being and reduce emotional problems in young people.

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